Anonymous
by chai4anne
Summary: As Christmas approaches at the end of Matt Santos' first year in office, Josh and Donna run into troubles. But the story really starts a year earlier, when Abbey invites the Santos family to dinner at the White House.
1. Chapter 1

IMPORTANT: If you're coming to this story for the first time, please read this note first:

Dear readers:

Until last year, my practice was always to finish a story before beginning to post it. I broke this long-standing habit with "Lighthouse Christmas," which I thought was going to be a fluffy, four-chapter Christmas family-fic, but soon turned into something much darker and much, _much _longer than I'd intended. I found the pressure to post on anything like a regular time-table difficult, and the amount of time it took to finish the story overwhelming, so I told friends afterwards that I would never do that again. It would have been wise if I'd stuck to that decision.

But, as you know if you've been reading this story, a few months later I found myself wanting to write another Christmas fic. I had some stuff in my drafts folder that I'd been trying to piece together for a very long time. There were quite a few bits and pieces, I'd finally figured out how I thought they should fit together, and I decided to take the plunge again.

That was a big mistake. The pieces I'd written-some of them years ago-have turned out to be far less compatible with each other than I'd thought. Others have become redundant: I began this story a long time ago, and ended up using some of my ideas, and even, it turns out, some of the sections I'd drafted for it, in other stories since then. To make matters worse, in trying to get through a section I hadn't written but knew I had to, I wrote a chapter in response to a current news story, posted it immediately, and realized the next morning that I'd created a whole new set of problems for myself that I didn't know how to work through. I'm afraid I still don't.

I do know that Matt Santos would never countenance torture. I'm quite certain that, faced with the news that the C.I.A. had been mistreating prisoners overseas, he would have immediately issued an executive order banning all forms of coercion and requiring that all prisoners be treated as they would in the U.S. I never meant to imply anything less for him-but that's one of the problems with posting as you write. You produce something that doesn't really add up, and then you're stuck with it.

I've been trying to think of ways to finesse that, but everything I come up with just creates a new set of problems. And I'm afraid I've lost the thread now. I don't like this story anymore, and I can't seem to take it where I wanted it to go-which was not, I hope you realize, to show Josh and Donna falling apart, but to show them working through some of the problems I thought might come up for them, working in those impossibly demanding jobs, and not having resolved their issues before they began. (The fact that Donna isn't wearing a ring in that scene where she wakes him in "Tomorrow" has always suggested to me that they really hadn't made a full commitment at that point.) I wanted to write a more realistic take on Josh in that first year than I did in "Life after Paradise," and weave that together with a plot line about him having to deal with Goodwin's rivalry for Matt's attention, and Matt having to make a real decision about which one of them he was going to listen to-because it drove me crazy that on the show we saw Matt not only seriously considering ditching Josh towards the end of the campaign, but putting Goodwin in charge of the transition and listening to his advice over Josh's, even when he wanted Josh to be his Chief of Staff.

I was interested, too, in Helen's attitude towards Josh, which I wanted to show eventually changing from the hostility we saw earlier in the campaign-though I thought that at first it would probably be increased by the move into the White House, which she obviously wasn't happy about. And then there were other characters whom we were either shown Josh making enemies of, or who seemed very likely to become enemies under the circumstances the show set up in that last season. That's what I wanted to explore with the anonymous letters that I was starting to show him receiving. They were meant to cause a lot of tension at first, but ultimately to become the catalyst for everyone's having to re-evaluate their understanding of Josh-which, as I guess has become more than obvious by now, is usually where I want my stories to go.

But I can't do it. At least, I can't do it now, and I really don't think I'm ever going to be able to. And I'm mortified. Starting to post a story and not finishing it is the one thing I've always promised myself I wouldn't do as a writer, because I absolutely hate it when other writers hook me in and leave me hanging, but in this case, I think it's probably better to draw a line and tell you now that I can't do this, rather than leave you waiting any longer, or risk sucking in any more readers and disappointing them.

I want to apologize to all of you for dropping you into my messy writing-process like this. I'm so sorry. I've always thought that, if nothing else, at least I had a reputation for finishing what I began, and I hate to let that go. But I don't want to keep you hanging, and I don't want to throw together a lousy story just for the sake of getting this done, either. It seems better to embarrass myself and admit that I made a mistake in starting to post this when it wasn't finished. I've posted enough that embarrasses me already, not to want to add something I _know _is bad from the start to the pile.

If the site lets me, I'll leave this note up for a week, and then-assuming I can figure out how to do it-take this story down. If I ever do get it written, I'll put it back up in its entirety, but I'm afraid at this point that seems pretty unlikely. If anyone still wants to know more about where this was going, just send me a PM, and I'll fill you in on what I had in mind-unsolved problems, warts and all.

My thanks to everyone who took the time to read this, especially to those of you who took the time to post encouraging comments, or to write to me privately with them. I appreciate that more than I can say.

With apologies and regrets,

Chai

Note: There's something about this time of year that always makes me turn back to Josh and Donna, even though I keep swearing I never will again. I'm going to try posting as I write again, too, though I'm not sure whether that's a good idea or not. I'm also not sure how long this story will be, or when I'll be able to get the rest written and up. Please bear with me as I work on it.

My thanks to Liz, Laura, and Arpad Hrunta, who at different times have heard about or seen parts of this story and commented on them. Liz even provided one of the lines I gave Abbey here. And I'm afraid I filched another one from Dorothy Sayers' "Gaudy Night."

Feedback is, as always, much appreciated.

Anonymous

By Chai

Prologue

(December 18, 2006)

Abbey Bartlet was well aware of the long-standing White House tradition that called for the sitting President and his wife to entertain his newly-elected replacement and his (or, someday, she hoped, _her_) family shortly after the November election. She had been grateful for the kindness Jed's predecessor and his wife had shown her family when they were the newcomers. As they approached the end of their eight years, she'd vowed that, even if the next occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was a Republican, she would issue a similar invitation promptly after Election Day.

But Leo's death meant the Bartlets hosted a wake instead. Neither Abbey nor Jed felt much like giving a party after that, and everyone on their communications staff thought it would be unseemly to try to entertain the Santoses in the usual way until at least a little time had passed.

On the other hand, they were both well aware that Leo wouldn't have wanted them to go into mourning for him, and would probably have insisted that their last Christmas in the White House be an occasion worth remembering. And so, in the middle of December, when the White House was decorated for the season and looking its splendid best, Abbey asked Matt and Helen Santos to join them for a tour of the mansion, followed by drinks and a casual buffet dinner afterwards. They invited some of Matt's key staff, and some of Jed's, as well.

Lights were twinkling from every mirror and picture-glass in the second-floor Center Hall sitting-room of the Residence, and a brass-and-string arrangement of traditional carols was playing quietly in the background as Abbey ushered her guests over to a long table the staff had set up in the middle of the room, and handed Helen a glass of wine.

"So," she asked, quietly, "how are you doing with all this? Really?"

Helen Santos looked down at her glass and stifled a sigh.

"I'm fine," she said. "Finding the school was the chief thing. It's a relief to have that settled, at least."

"They're going to a public one?"

"Yes, Ben W. Murch. On 36th Street, in North-West."

"I know it. It has a good reputation."

"We're very pleased with it. I'm so glad we've found an alternative to the whole private-school thing. I want Peter and Miranda to know all kinds of people, not just the privileged offspring of the pedigreed and powerful."

There was a flash of resentment in her voice that wasn't lost on Abbey.

"Well, if you can make this school work, that will be a very good thing," she said, evenly.

Helen flushed a little, remembering too late that Abbey and Jed could both trace their families back to the Revolution, were more than comfortably well-off, and had sent their daughters to private schools.

"I'm sorry," she stammered. "I didn't mean-" The stem of her glass twisted in her fingers, and her face twisted with embarrassment, too.

"There's nothing to apologize for. Jed and I are good Democrats, you know; we believe in public schools. We started all the girls at public elementaries in Manchester, and had every intention of keeping them there. But Elizabeth was dyslexic, Ellie needed more of a challenge in math and science, and by the time it was Zoey's turn, Jed was governor, and the other kids wouldn't let her forget it. We tried three different schools before we found one where she felt at home, and it was private. But every child and every school is different. If you've found one that will work for your kids, that's wonderful. Just be sure to listen to what they're really feeling about it, and if something isn't working for them, don't hold them hostage to a political ideal. But I'm sure I don't have to tell _you _that."

"Of course not." Helen sounded surprised. "We'd never do that."

Abbey glanced at her sardonically, but softened her expression almost at once. Helen was nervous enough about all the changes that were happening to their lives; she didn't need Abbey weighing in with the cynicism engendered by eight years of experience with White House compromises-or with Abbey's private opinion that the Santoses were already holding their kids hostage to their political ideals. In her view, sending the President's children, Secret Service detail and all, to an ordinary public school was close to insane. On the other hand, she'd never heard anything but good about Murch_,_ and she supposed it was possible that Peter and Miranda wouldn't encounter any more difficulties there than at Sidwell or St. Albans.

"Mallory taught there for a while, did you know?" she said, instead. "She enjoyed it."

"I didn't know that. I'm afraid I don't really know Mallory very well. She kept her distance from the campaign."

"She was so busy with the baby. And she doesn't like politics much. I don't think she's ever quite forgiven Jed for what Leo's job did to her mother and their marriage."

"I thought it was Leo who talked your husband into running?"

"It was. And there were plenty of times I wanted to strangle him for it, believe me-showing up with a campaign slogan on a napkin and turning our lives upside-down like that! But you can't expect Mallory to think of it that way. She's his daughter, and she loved him as much as she loved her mother. The divorce was hard on her, especially coming so soon after her own."

Helen shook her head.

"I'd have wanted to strangle him, too," she said quietly, setting her glass down and glancing across the room. "I'm surprised you didn't. They just don't _get _it, do they?"

"Who doesn't?" Abbey Bartlet asked, reasonably sure the expression of distaste flickering across her guest's face had nothing to do with either the White House cellar or the Christmas tree, laden with glittering ornaments and twinkling with seasonal good cheer, that Helen seemed to be looking at.

"Them." Helen tipped her head towards the groups of people standing between them and the tree. "The ones who got us into this."

Abbey followed Helen's gaze to Josh, who was talking with Sam and C.J. Nearby, Donna and Annabeth were chatting with rather forced-looking animation to Cliff Calley and Amy Gardner, while the rest of the Santos staffers-Otto, Bram, Edie, Ronna, and Lou Thornton-were hovering around the far end of the table, keeping each other entertained and making serious inroads into the hors d'oeuvres. Abbey saw with some amusement that Barry Goodwin had already managed to pin both her husband and Matt Santos between the piano and the tree, and was clearly trying to make the most of the opportunity to advance himself in their-or possibly just Matt's-presidential good opinion.

Jed looked up at the same moment, catching her eye with a look she knew well. It was hard not to smile. After thirty-odd years of marriage and eight years as what some would call the most powerful man in the world, he was still looking to his wife to get him out of conversations he wasn't enjoying.

His ego was feeling the pain of replacement, she knew. He liked Matt Santos well enough, and of course with Leo on the ticket had voted for him, too, but he thought his successor was wet behind the ears and sadly lacking in intellectual heft; it had stung him more than a little that, when Josh left to find a candidate of his own to run, he hadn't chosen someone more like Jed himself. And he'd never been a fan of Goodwin, who'd been angling unsuccessfully for a Cabinet position or senior White House staff job for years.

"What don't they get?" Abbey asked, shaking her head at Jed to indicate that no, she wasn't going to rescue him this time.

"Any of this. They light a fire under our husbands to make them run, and they don't think about who's going to get burned along the way."

"I don't think anyone could actually have _made _Jed run, if he hadn't wanted to," Abbey said, a wry note in her voice that hadn't been there before.

"Or Matt either, of course. But they didn't think of it by themselves, did they? I don't know how you could have been friends with Leo after he did that to you. I'd have been _furious _with him."

"I was for a while," Abbey admitted. "But I couldn't go on and on like that. You _can't_ go on and on being angry with someone like Leo. He was such a good man. Everything he did was because he thought it was best for the country. And he paid for it dearly. The divorce hurt him every bit as much as it hurt Jenny and Mallory."

Helen picked up her glass again and drained it. Abbey poured her another one, ignoring the waiter who tried to step in to do it for her.

"You knew him before, didn't you?" Helen asked, cradling her glass and frowning into it.

"For years. He and Jed had been friends forever."

"I didn't know Josh at all. I'd never met him until he crashed into our lives last Christmas. Matt had just decided to leave Washington and stay in Dallas with us, and the children were so happy. We were all so happy."

Someone cleared his throat behind them. Helen paused, and Abbey turned to find Charlie standing at her elbow.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Mrs. Bartlet, Mrs. Santos, but Zoey sent me to warn you that she can't keep the kids out any longer," he told them, the laughter in his eyes belying his apologetic tone.

"Oh, goodness," Helen said, just as her two children, who had been exploring the White House with Zoey and Charlie as their guides, babysitters, and partners in crime, ran into the room, giggling. Miranda plunged between Ronna and Otto, who were still talking at the far end of the hors d'oeuvres table, and disappeared under its layered skirts. Peter more circumspectly dodged around them, then got down and crawled in from the side.

"No, Peter! Come out of there, Miranda," Helen urged them, but Abbey smiled and told her to let them be.

"They have to be comfortable in their new home," she pointed out.

A moment later Zoey appeared, and started opening cupboard doors and looking under the furniture. Charlie glided across the room and whispered something in her ear. She listened, smiled, and continued searching, carefully avoiding the food table, whose skirt was dimpled with large bulges that didn't seem to want to stay still, and were accompanied by giggles and the occasional "Shhh!"

"I understand what you're feeling," Abbey said, returning to their earlier subject. "I didn't want Jed to run, either. Especially not with his condition."

"_Of course_ you didn't. It must have been terrible for you."

"He promised me it would only be once. I was furious when he decided to run the second time."

"I'd have killed him."

"I was afraid it would. And when he was shot . . . And when Zoey . . ." Her voice thickened, and she had to pause to compose herself.

Helen nodded again, her eyes filling. "That's what I mean."

They were silent for a moment then, watching Zoey looking in the most improbable places while ignoring the shaking underskirts of the table in the middle of the room. She _seems _perfectly fine now, Helen thought, but could a woman ever really be all right again after what she'd gone through? Such a lovely girl; it was too horrible to think about. And if anything like that ever happened to Miranda . . . .

Spots danced before Helen's eyes, and her glass trembled in her hand.

"They'll be all right," Abbey said, taking it from her and putting it down on the table between a Paul Revere candelabra and a three-tiered stack of canapés. "Congress voted that big budget increase for the Service, so they're in a much better position to protect the children. They've completely re-thought their procedures for doing it. And you're lucky, really, that it's happened when they're so young. It's much easier to look after them at their age, when they don't need so many freedoms. It won't be the same as it was for us."

"I hope not."

"They'll be all right."

"They'd better be. I—"

Abbey reached out a comforting hand. The two women stood together for a moment, Helen struggling to keep the tears back, Abbey silently squeezing her hand.

"I must not be as a good a person as you are, Mrs. Bartlet," the younger woman suddenly burst out.

"What do you mean?" Abbey asked, giving her hand another squeeze. "And please, call me Abbey."

Helen tried to nod. "Abbey, I mean," she corrected herself. Abbey had asked for her first name several times before, but Helen found it hard to remember to use it, in spite of her own distaste for formality.

"I'm not a particularly good person, Helen, I promise you."

"I-" Helen started, but a stentorian voice behind her cut her off.

"Good evening, Mrs. Bartlet, Mrs. Santos. And how are you two lovely ladies doing tonight?"

Looking up, Abbey saw to her dismay that Jed had apparently managed to rescue himself, at least from Barry Goodwin. The former DNC chair and current manager of the Santos transition team was no longer stuck to his side, but was leaning across the table and smiling at her unctuously.

"Why, we're fine, Barry," Abbey said, giving Helen an apologetic glance, and a stern, "if-you-ever-want-me-to-be-your mother-in-law, get-over-here-now" one at Charlie. He left Zoey's side at once and moved across the room towards the First Lady. "But I'm just in the middle of explaining to Helen how the staffing roster works here. It's deathly dull but vitally important, so perhaps I could talk to you in a few minutes, when we're done? Charlie, will you get Mr. Goodwin a drink, and take him over to see Zoey? It's been such a long time since she's had a chance to talk to him."

Charlie met Abbey's eyes reproachfully, but she gave him The Look again, and he calculated correctly that it would be better to piss off Zoey by dumping Barry Goodwin on her than to ignore the woman he was, in fact, hoping to make his mother-in-law someday.

"Zoey was just saying how much she was looking forward to seeing you, Mr. Goodwin," he improvised, with a wild disregard for truth that made her mother's eyes gleam with amusement. Goodwin gave in gracefully enough, allowing Charlie to lead him off. Watching them cross the room, Abbey thought both of them were sporting something of a martyred air in the set of their shoulders.

"I'm sorry," she said, turning back to Helen. "What were you saying?"

"Oh, nothing."

"It wasn't nothing. You're upset. Would you like to go somewhere more private and talk about it?"

"No, really, it's all right. I shouldn't have brought it up. It's just-"

Why was it, Abbey wondered, that so few people could resist the temptation to finish a thought when they've just announced that they shouldn't say it? But she was curious enough to want to know what was on her successor's mind.

"Just what?"

"Just-I know I shouldn't say it. I shouldn't even _think _it. But-"

"Go on. No one can hear you except me, and you can trust a doctor to keep a confidence."

"I just can't stand that man. I _can't_!"

"Barry Goodwin?" Abbey asked, though she was pretty sure that wasn't who Helen meant. "Who can?"

"No. _Josh," _Helen sobbed, suddenly losing the battle with her tears. Abbey handed her a cocktail napkin. She scrubbed at her eyes with it, then balled it up and blinked back at Abbey with something like defiance.

"I—I know I shouldn't. I know I should be grateful to him for all he's done for Matt. But whenever I look at him, all I can think of is what he's done to us."

"What do you mean, exactly?"

"What you said about Leo, turning your lives upside down. That's what Josh has done to us. We'll never be the same again. We've lost our freedom, and most of our friends, forever. The children are going to be miserable when it finally hits them how much things have changed. _Matt's_ going to be miserable-not all the time, of course, but often enough."

"He wanted the job, didn't he?"

"I don't know. He wanted to run, after Josh talked him into it, but neither of us thought at first that he had a chance of winning, you know. We just thought it would be a good way to get his ideas out there. And then he did so much better than we expected, and everything started to snowball, and neither of us had a chance to stop and really think about what we were doing."

"I'm sure he'll thrive on it. Jed has."

"I hope so. But it's a terrible job-you know how terrible it is. No one can take these responsibilities on and do everything right. Even the smallest mis-step will have such huge consequences, and the Republicans and the press will hound us every minute-they always do. We'll never have any peace again. But Josh is in his glory. It was all a big career move for him. And what's he had to give up for it? Just some sleep. That's all he'll ever have to give up for _his _job-just a little sleep."

"I think you're being a bit unfair there, Helen."

"Am I?" Helen sniffed, and wiped her eyes again.

Abbey took a deep breath. She wasn't about to get into the details of Josh's medical history with anyone he hadn't given her permission to discuss it with, so she had to content herself with saying, "Surely you remember what happened at Rosslyn."

Helen swallowed.

"Of course. Yes, you're right, that was unfair of me. But that was years ago. He's all right now, isn't he?"

Abbey didn't answer. Looking over at Josh, she noticed for the first time that evening how stiffly he and C.J. and Sam were standing together: the awkward pauses that punctuated their conversation, how stern and unsmiling Sam seemed, the nervous way C.J. was fiddling with her necklace and Josh was poking at the carpet with his shoe. Another casualty of politics, she thought with a sigh, remembering the warm friendship the three once enjoyed.

"He isn't like us," Helen went on. "Look at him there-he doesn't know how to get on with anybody, really, not even the people he's known for years. I don't think he has any real friends. He doesn't even have a family-just a mother somewhere, and he never goes to see her, poor woman. He'll never understand what other people are feeling, or what he took away from us. He doesn't know about anything except politics. He doesn't_ care _about anything except politics. Or anyone."

"I thought he was going out with Donna now?"

"They are. For now."

"You don't think they'll last?"

Abbey hadn't seen much of either Josh or Donna this past year, and was curious what Helen thought about them.

"I don't think he knows what a relationship is. I can't imagine what she sees in him. Maybe it's a power thing-he's got it now, I guess, and some women seem to find that sexy. To be honest, until a few weeks ago I didn't think she even liked him."

"_Really?_" Abbey couldn't keep the surprise out of her voice.

"She didn't sound like it, when anyone was talking about him before the election," Helen said.

"How odd. I wouldn't have expected that from Donna."

"It's one of the reasons I thought Matt should put Barry Goodwin in as campaign manager after the convention, instead of Josh. Donna worked for Josh for years; if _she _didn't have anything good to say about him, then I didn't think he could be trusted with the staff. None of Matt's old staff could stand him. He fired poor Ned, you know, just a few weeks before the election. We saw him over Thanksgiving-he's still devastated by it. He didn't deserve that; he's such a nice man, always so good with the children. Everyone who knows him feels bad about it-except Josh."

"Decisions like that are always hard on people."

"I suppose they are. I just can't see why he had to make that one. In any case, Leo wanted to keep Josh, and Matt listened to Leo, and I suppose, as far as the election went, it all worked out in the end."

Abbey nodded. She was still thinking about the thing Helen had said earlier.

"But you said Donna was angry with Josh? Really angry, I mean-not just annoyed?"

She'd been angry with Josh plenty of times herself, of course, but Donna's devotion to him was something she'd thought nothing could change. She'd often wished Leo would find Donna a different job, since it was obvious that Josh wasn't going to be making any moves in that direction as long as she worked for him-a restraint Abbey had to admire, having spent most of her adult life watching with frustration the harassment attractive women of her acquaintance had to put up with from their male bosses or professional superiors. But Leo had always said that Josh's office was the key to their legislative success and he couldn't afford to disrupt it by pulling Donna out and leaving Josh with a less knowledgeable and effective assistant.

Abbey recognized the dilemma-no one ever wants to have to replace a worker who's as effective in a job as Donna was in hers-but in this case she'd thought Leo was being almost criminally short-sighted.

"He's in love with her, Leo," she'd told him bluntly on more than one occasion. "And she's in love with him. Really in love, not just some passing attraction. But I'm not sure either one of them knows how the other feels." She had Amy Gardner's thoughts on that to back her up, as well as her own observations. "It's not doing either of them any good, keeping them in this position where they can't do anything about it. One of these days one of them is going to crack, and then you'll have a mess on your hands that will be far harder to get everyone through than just training a new assistant would be."

"There won't be any mess," Leo had growled. "Josh knows what I expect from him-and what his father would have expected, too. Working for this administration is the greatest privilege any of us will ever have; we have to be willing to make sacrifices for it. When it's over, Josh and Donna will have the rest of their lives to make love to each other, if they want to. In the meantime, he needs to focus on his work, and she needs to focus on hers."

"Oh, Josh will focus, all right. That's what I'm worried about. You won't break his work ethic. But you might break his spirit-or his health."

"He'll be fine, Abbey. You worry too much."

"God, Leo. Are you this damned condescending to your own doctor, too?"

And Leo had laughed and said he was too busy to talk to his doctor, but he was counting on her to keep him healthy. And she'd lost her temper and left the room, throwing something back over her shoulder about him having a heart attack before Jed was out of office, and how he ought to think about whether he wanted Josh to go the same way, too.

Remembering all that now, she felt a terrible wave of sadness wash over her.

"_Donna?" _she said again, her voice suddenly husky.

"Oh, yes," Helen replied. "Definitely Donna. I thought she couldn't stand him, actually. And no wonder, when he'd been making her work such terrible hours, picking up his dry-cleaning for him, bringing him lunch! All for pennies, too-I saw her resumé, her salary was terribly low. He must be the worst kind of chauvinist to treat her like that."

"I'm afraid the salary and hours, and the things like picking up dry-cleaning and bringing in lunch, all go with the job. I didn't know Donna resented it. All the White House assistants are over-qualified, but I've had the impression that most of them view it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see things they'd never get to see otherwise, and to make a difference in a way most jobs just don't let you do. There's a lot of competition for work in the White House, you know, even for the mail room jobs."

And Donna's job, Abbey thought, still baffled by what Helen was telling her, had been a long way above the mail room. Special Assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff was one of the top positions available at the assistant level. Only Margaret's and Mrs. Landingham's had carried more prestige. Given her lack of qualifications when Josh had hired her, the First Lady couldn't help wondering what more she could have expected.

"She said it was nice to be out of the kitchen for a change, doing something worthwhile. She never spoke about him without sounding bitter. And then suddenly she was off on a vacation with him, and when they came back they were together."

"There's a lot of history there. It's complicated."

"She told me once she'd asked him again and again for more responsibility, but he just brushed her off with things like that Gaza trip-and you know how well _that _worked out for her. She said there wasn't any reason for her to go at all, but it was the kind of thing Josh did, tossing her a trip somewhere and thinking that would keep her happy, when she wanted something _real _to do. And where did he have to send her, but one of the most dangerous places in the world! She almost lost her life there. She's still in pain from that leg at times, you know. It's no wonder she was so angry with him. I can't believe she'll be happy with him, not for long."

Abbey sighed, feeling suddenly old and tired and more than a little angry herself. If Leo had just _listened_ to her-or if Jed had listened to her, and had been willing to make Leo listen-then two intelligent, hard-working, decent people could have been happily making babies together, instead of finding themselves caught up in this twisted, unhappy mess that she was sure must have hurt both of them far more than Donna's new boss had any way to understand. Abbey had no idea how to begin to explain it to her. She just hoped Helen was wrong, and the hurts of the past wouldn't spill over and damage what Josh and Donna had together now.

As for God, who had let that bombing happen, she'd like to give Him a piece of her mind, too. Donna hadn't deserved it. But neither had Josh, who hadn't deserved a lot of other things that had happened to him, either, and who would undoubtedly be happier and easier on himself and the people around him if they hadn't. But they had. And if he had the slightest idea that Donna had blamed him, even for a minute, for sending her to Gaza-

Dear God, she thought, don't let him find out _that. _Don't let him think _that. _ But she knew with a sudden, chilling certainty that Josh would think it whether anyone told him what Donna had thought, or not.

"It was a bad break," she said, focusing on the one thing she might actually be able to make better. "She should be doing more therapy, if it's still troubling her. I expect she's been so focused on the campaign that she hasn't had time for it. You might want to make sure she takes care of it now."

"I will. Can you recommend someone?"

"Not offhand, but I'll ask around, if you like, and get some names."

"I'd appreciate that. I like her a lot. She's a lovely young woman, and she's been such a help to me."

"I'm sure she has. You need someone who knows how things work around here, and Donna certainly does by now. Socially and politically."

"Yes. She proved that on the campaign."

"And long before, too."

"Even if that pig over there didn't notice."

"Helen-"

Helen heard the remonstrance in Abbey's tone, and flushed.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't talk about him like that. I keep forgetting you've known him a long time, and probably like him much more than I do."

"_Like_ Josh?" Abbey looked down at her glass and turned it thoughtfully between her fingers. "I haven't always liked him, Helen. There've been times when I've been absolutely furious with him. But-"

But whatever it was she was going to tell Helen about the complicated feelings of annoyance, anger, concern, tenderness, admiration, and genuinely deep affection that Josh had evoked in her over the years was lost and went forever unsaid, because at that moment Zoey made a sudden lunge across the room, a volley of squeals and giggles erupted at Abbey's feet, and the laden table in front of her shuddered, heaved, and tipped over, everything on it—candlesticks, china, crystal, food, not to mention Helen's half-finished glass of wine—crashing spectacularly to the floor.

Zoey told her mother afterwards that really, all things considered, it had been one of the more entertaining White House parties she could remember.


	2. Chapter 2

Note: I think I told some of you privately that the next chapter was going to take place a year after the last one. It doesn't. This takes place the day after the Bartlets' party, and not a great deal happens in it, except in Helen's mind. It's still important to the story, though!

(My apologies to Sandra, and anyone else who finds short chapters frustrating. I hope the next one will be a little more substantial.)

Chapter 2:

Helen wasn't at all happy with herself after the Bartlets' party. Her children's behavior had been mortifying-but hers hadn't been much better. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she felt that it had been significantly worse. She'd never been comfortable with the role of political wife-she'd married Matt when he was in the Marines, with no idea that he'd want to go into politics at all-but she hadn't expected to make such a hash of what should have been a pleasant evening with President and Dr. Bartlet.

She wished she could hit a backspace key and erase all the hostile things she'd said about Josh. She'd been upset, of course, about the impending move into that grand and intimidating mansion. She wasn't a grand person, wasn't delighted by grandeur; everything about the White House made her uncomfortable. And she couldn't stop worrying about Matt and the children. She hadn't been able to free herself from the tense drumming of anxiety about them for even a minute since the convention-ironically, since they'd started getting Secret Service protection-and she'd had nightmares about assassinations and kidnappings almost every night since the election. Seeing Zoey playing with Peter and Miranda had left her trembling with fear that what had happened to the Bartlets' charming youngest child actually would happen to one of hers.

She knew, of course, that none of this was really Josh's fault. But she felt as if she _had _to be angry with someone, and she couldn't let herself be angry with Matt about it-if she did that, it would be the beginning of the end for them. Josh was an easy target. And she'd assumed that Abbey would understand.

She'd heard things-rumors about Abbey's difficulties in getting her agenda taken seriously, about her going head-to-head with Josh over issue after issue, about her having to hire his ex-girlfriend to manage him and put him in his place-that had made her think her hostess would sympathize with her feelings about him. But she'd gotten the distinct impression that Abbey didn't agree with her at all.

Abbey had said she hadn't always liked Josh-but that implied that she _did _like him now, didn't it? Helen found that hard to understand. He was an impossible man to work for, everyone knew that. Yelling at the staff. Driving them crazy with his micromanaging, his insane expectations and demands. Firing poor Ned, who'd worked for Matt for so long.

And then the way he'd treated Donna. His assistant for eight years-how had she survived it? Donna had been circumspect in what she said about him most of the time, but she'd let a few things slip when she was first working with Helen, that had made it clear how little she'd enjoyed _that _job, how glad she was to escape it and have a chance to bloom. He'd obviously failed completely to see her potential. Was that what he was going to be like as Chief of Staff? Helen wasn't sure at all that Matt was doing the right thing, putting Josh in charge of running the West Wing. Barry Goodwin, of course, agreed with her-but Matt thought he owed the job to Josh.

"Does that really matter at this point?" Helen had asked him, just the other day. "Isn't it more important to put the right man in that position?"

"He is the right man, I think," Matt had answered. "He has more experience than anyone else I could call on. And he knows Congress inside out and backwards; he was legislative director in the House, you know, and floor director in the Senate, before he joined Hoynes' staff, and then the Bartlet campaign."

"You know Congress inside out and backwards, too."

"I know a lot about it, but I need a Chief of Staff who knows even more. Josh does. He's a good man, Helen. You just have to give him a chance."

Thinking about it now, Helen sighed. Maybe Matt was right; maybe she _did _need to give Josh more of a chance. Abbey clearly hadn't shared her opinion of him. And Donna was dating him now, so she must see _something_ in him, mustn't she? Something more than the pig her occasional indiscreet comment before the election had suggested. At least, Helen hoped she saw more than that in him. She hated the idea that the woman she'd made her Chief of Staff might show such poor judgment in her personal life as to get involved with a man who didn't respect her. So clearly Josh must be quite different than the man Helen disliked so much.

And yet, it had seemed so clear before Donna went away on that vacation with him that she _didn't _think he respected her. . . .

Helen shook her head to clear it. She'd chosen Donna; she wasn't going to go back on that decision now. And Matt had chosen Josh, and didn't want to go back on that, either.

Still, he'd entrusted the transition to Barry Goodwin, and was taking advice from him as well as from Josh. If Josh didn't work out, Matt would have other choices. . . .

Oh, dear-there she went again. Really, she'd _have_ to try harder to stop thinking like this, to give the man a chance, as Matt had said. It wasn't fair to take out her anxieties on him, just because he'd started them on their path towards this terrifying place.

She still couldn't think what Donna saw in him, though. He wasn't even handsome-not like Matt. He was well-enough built, she supposed, and his face was all right, but that hairline. . . .

Oh, dear, there she was, doing it _again_. She'd just have to hope she'd understand Donna's attraction to him as she got to know him better. There'd be plenty of chances for that: with him as Matt's Chief of Staff, and Donna as _her _Chief of Staff, he was obviously going to be quite a presence in their lives. She really _must _stop blurting out her feelings about him to everyone she thought might give her a sympathetic ear. It was one thing, sympathizing with Ned at Thanksgiving, or listening to Barry Goodwin's concerns. But she didn't want to repeat what she'd said last night in front of anyone else.

She'd just have to try to stifle any negative thoughts about him, and keep an open mind. Hopefully she'd find that he really did deserve the trust that Matt and Donna had put in him.

But why had Donna _said _those things about him, if he did?


	3. Chapter 3

A year later:

December 10, 2007

"We _have_ to be open about this thing, sir!"

"All due respect, Mr. President, but we have to keep it firmly under the radar."

Josh glances at Barry Goodwin and wonders how the man ever got so far in the Democratic Party. He has all the instincts of a Republican-and the worst sort of Republican at that.

Not that Josh doesn't believe in keeping many things out of the press, if possible, but not something like this. It will have "cover-up" written all over it, and "public relations disaster" right along with that-though Santos's polling numbers aren't actually Josh's top concern at the moment. His revulsion at what he's been briefing the President about is visceral and intense.

"We should make a press statement, and call for a thorough investigation, sir. An investigation, and _action. _This has to be stopped."

"The C.I.A. has requested-" Goodwin huffs.

"The_ C.I.A.-!_" Josh can't keep the incredulity out of his voice.

"They say this is a matter of national security."

"The C.I.A. has _every reason_ to try to keep this under wraps!"

Matt Santos folds his arms and looks from one man to the other and back again, his brow furrowed in concentration. Josh is his Chief of Staff, and so-in theory, at least-Matt's most trusted advisor. But Matt's always taken the former DNC chair's advice seriously, too. He'd entrusted Goodwin with the management of his transition, and then given him a position in the administration as Senior Advisor, reporting directly to the President.

Josh hadn't been thrilled about that, but Matt hadn't really given him a choice. Clashes between the two top advisors have sent sparks flying on more than one occasion since then. Matt's okay with that. Not that he enjoys conflict particularly, but he feels more comfortable when he's hearing different points of view than when his staff are all on the same page. That always leaves him wondering what he isn't thinking of, what they're leaving out.

"What's your response to that, Barry?" he asks now.

"Ron Freicker has assured us, sir, that the instances Josh was describing were minimal, and that the techniques of, er, strong persuasion the C.I.A. has used in certain very specific cases have yielded information essential to our security. All the incidents took place on foreign soil. No American laws have been broken. And at least two and possibly more terrorist plots have been averted as a result of the information gained from these techniques."

"Says the C.I.A. Sir-"

"Says the C.I.A. Director _you _appointed, Mr. President. It hardly seems appropriate to choose not to trust him now."

"He has every reason to cover this up. And he's a Republican."

"He was our appointee. And he's a good one, the best man for the job. He knows the agency inside out and backwards."

"Sir, Nancy McNally says-"

"The N.S.A. has always been at odds with the C.I.A, you know that, Josh. Anyway, Kate Harper disagrees with her."

"Kate Harper _is _C.I.A.! You never get away from that culture. She-"

"Okay," Matt breaks in, cutting off the debate. "I get the point. You think we should open this thing up to a full investigation, Josh?"

"Yes, sir. The public expects transparency from this administration. You promised full accountability. Anything less isn't worthy of your presidency, and will only end up biting us in the ass when it comes out. And it will come out, sooner or later; these things always do. But even if it doesn't, lives are at stake. Our values are at stake. This isn't who we are. We need to find out _now _what the C.I.A. has really been doing under Freicker for the past year, and, if it's what we suspect, get it stopped."

"I've already ordered the water-boarding stopped." Matt frowns down at the blotter on his desk, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair-a habit he can't remember indulging in before he moved into this office.

"If our source is telling the truth, that's just the tip of the iceberg, sir."

"That's quite an accusation, Josh." Goodwin's voice is tight with anger. "What do you think our agents are? A bunch of Nazis?"

"We need to make sure they're not."

"At the risk of national security? What do you want, more ships blown up? Airplanes flying into buildings, falling out of the air? We can't afford to be naive. Nobody with any experience in foreign affairs would talk about 'transparency' when security's at stake. The Nazis were a walk in the park compared to the guys we're fighting now."

"Maybe in _your _park, Goodwin." Josh's voice rises a little more than he usually lets it when he's in that room. "My family wasn't getting rich off arms sales. They were too busy trying to survive in the camps."

"That's enough, guys," Matt says, firmly. "I've heard from both of you; I'm not going to make a decision right now. Josh, I'd like to talk to both McNally and Harper tomorrow-separately, please. And keep this under wraps for now. I don't want to open it up to the rest of the senior staff until I've had a chance to give it more thought."

"Yes, sir."

"Thanks. Goodnight, Barry; I'll see you tomorrow. I know it's getting late, Josh, but if you've got another minute, I want to talk to you about a couple more things I need to fit into my schedule. It seems I missed the last parent-teacher meetings at Peter's school. Helen wants me to try to get to at least one of them this time. She's talked to Ronna about it, but we're going to have to move something to make it happen. And when I told you to book Randall for Friday, I'd forgotten about Miranda's dance recital. . . ."

000000

Two hours later, Josh finally puts down the phone, pushes himself up from his desk, and reaches for his backpack. It feels heavier than usual, weighed down with more than just briefing papers and exhaustion.

His stomach is still roiling at what he first heard a few hours ago. An agent with an uncomfortable conscience and friends in other branches of the intelligence community had gone through Mike Caspar at the F.B.I. to get a meeting with Josh that morning. By noon all hell was breaking loose in the West Wing-or at least, in Josh's corner of it. Sam still doesn't know, or the rest of the staff. Josh isn't sure he wants them to. He has no idea how he's going to tell Sam Seaborn or any of the others that, on his watch, the C.I.A. has been torturing prisoners in the Middle East.

Not that he's ever thought of the C.I.A. as a model of ethical decorum, but the procedures the agent described are so nauseating they make covert operations and straightforward assassinations seem almost like child's play. Frieckert has denied it all, of course-or most of it, anyway. And the President has ordered the one thing the director is admiting to stopped at once. But there isn't much doubt in Josh's mind that Freickert is lying, and that right now, this very minute, in some filthy hole of a dungeon somewhere on the other side of the world, men and possibly even women are suffering unspeakable things at the hands of American agents.

It's unbearable. And it's his job to stop it. If this had happened just two years ago, that wouldn't be a problem: Leo and Jed Bartlet were pragmatic men who'd made some decisions Josh had never been able to feel comfortable about, but torture wasn't one of them. Leo had been in the service; he knew that if you tortured enemy prisoners, your captured soldiers would be subjected to the same, or worse. Both he and President Bartlet were far too intelligent to think that torture ever produced anything like reliable information, and they knew that American officers had obtained the information their country needed to fight and win world wars on both the European and Pacific fronts without ever resorting to tormenting their prisoners. On the contrary: they were most successful when they set out to win the trust and respect of the men they were interrogating.

And, most importantly, Bartlet and Leo were simply too decent to accept the kind of thing Josh had been listening to all morning. If Josh had taken this story to either of them, they would have blasted Freickert from here to one of his own foul prison cells in Kazakhstan or Qumar, and left him to rot there for the rest of eternity.

But that was two years ago. Now? Josh isn't so sure. Matt is clearly shocked by what he's heard, of course; he would no more countenance torture than Leo or Jed Bartlet would-if he believed it was happening. But Frieckert is denying it, and Matt trusts Freickert, as Josh never has. Goodwin is defending the C.I.A. Director-and Goodwin can be very persuasive. Over the past year Josh has probably lost as many arguments to him as he's won. He really doesn't know which way this one is going to go.

And that thought sears him like acid. What the hell is he doing in this job, anyway, if he can't even be sure the President will listen to him on something like this?

But he is in this job. And if he fails, the responsibility for those men's shattered lives will be his.

He sighs, drags the backpack onto his shoulder, and heads for the door.

His agent falls into place behind him. Josh barely acknowledges him. He's just remembered that Donna had asked him to try to get home in time for dinner tonight.

He pulls his phone out.

"Hey," he says, softly. "I'm sorry. There's been a thing."

"That's okay," she says. Her voice is quiet and detached, and he can't tell whether she's mad at him, or disappointed, or resigned, or even if she's feeling anything at all.

It's drizzling out, a freezing rain. The agent drives him home. He stares out the window at the lights tangling on the wet pavement, and tries to figure out what the hell he's got to do to convince Matt that Freickert is lying, and what he should get Donna for Christmas.

His phone dings. He glances down at it, blinks, freezes. His mouth twists a little. Then he shrugs, a quick, barely-there gesture, and forwards the message to the folder he's marked "Private: Anon."

He can't help flicking his eyes at the agent's face, but the man is concentrating on the slippery road, and hasn't seen a thing.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day:

December 11, 2007

"Goodnight, then, Helen."

"Goodnight, Donna. Have a good weekend. Get lots of Christmas shopping done."

"I will. You, too!"

"I will. Goodnight!"

The office door closes behind Helen, and Donna drops her head back and stifles a groan. The platitudes make her feel as if her head were stuffed with cotton wool. She's so tired of being told to have a good weekend. She's beyond tired of telling people that she expects to have one. She's fed up with compulsory smiles and cheerfulness. She's fed up, period.

She's fed up with the tinselly Christmas decorations in the streets and stores, and the jingly Christmas songs on the radio, that have been playing for so long she thinks she's going to go mad if she has to hear them one more time-and she knows she'll probably hear them a thousand more times before the holiday is over. It always used to be her favorite holiday, but that was a million years ago and she must have been someone else then. She's fed up with the weather: rain and freezing rain, and never any snow. She's fed up with leaving the office at 6:00 and beating her way through the slushy streets and appalling traffic to the tiny, overcrowded apartment that she and Josh still haven't found time to replace with something nicer. She's fed up with letting herself in and turning on the lights and making dinner and eating it by herself, because Josh is held up at the office and won't be home for hours. She's fed up, period.

Most of all, she thinks now, she's fed up with herself for not being able to make herself stop feeling this way. She knows it's not Josh's fault, not really. She knew what she was getting into, when she told him last November, at the end of that blissful week of sun and sand and passionate sex all day long, that yes, she'd move in with him and live with him. She'd known what he was like, how much his work had always mattered to him, how impossible it would be for him to take any real time away from _this _job that he was going into, of all jobs.

She'd thought she could handle it. And she _had_ been handling it-at least, on the outside. What she hadn't realized was that doing that would leave her feeling like this on the inside. So frustrated. So-empty. So sad.

She'd been sure her work would make all the difference, that she'd be so busy and satisfied by her exciting new job-Chief of Staff to the First Lady!-that she wouldn't have much time to spend with Josh anyway, and wouldn't miss his having time to spend with her. And at first that had been true. She'd been thrilled by all her new responsibilities and the excitement of finding ways to carry them out. Having Josh there at the end of the day to make love to her-which he did, most of the time, with all the passion she'd always hoped for-was the icing on the cake, but not the cake itself. And that was just how she wanted it. Or at least, just how she'd thought she wanted it. . . .

Those first few months had been a heady time. There'd been the staff to hire, designers to help Helen choose (for the First Lady's and the children's clothes for the Inauguration and other public events, and for the difficult business of turning the White House into a real home for the Santoses, whose tastes were quite different from the Bartlets', and from most other Presidents' as well).

Then there'd been her own dress for the Inauguration to find; the Inauguration itself to get through; the balls, where she'd danced with Josh at every one of the fourteen extravaganzas the Inaugural committee had planned at different sites across the city; the Santoses' move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to oversee. And then Helen's schedule to begin to put together. The first Easter Egg Roll to coordinate. The first family trip to Camp David to organize. And, most importantly, the question of the First Lady's public theme to help Helen decide on, and then the events to arrange in order to promote it.

It was all very exciting-and, at times, much more difficult than Donna had anticipated. The worst part was the viciousness of the backlash they'd encountered from the right-wing press. She'd found it hard to believe that people would say anything unpleasant about a First Lady choosing to devote her time to promoting better health for children, but Rush Limbaugh and the commentators on Fox managed to surprise her. She hadn't had much experience dealing with that kind of thing before, and found it much harder than she'd expected.

Her team fumbled some of their early responses badly. Josh wasn't much help. The first time Fox had savaged Helen, he'd said nothing, when she wanted reassurance-and then said all the wrong things when she'd gone fishing for it. She'd been angry with him for a while over that, but he'd been so contrite, and looked so pathetic while he was apologizing and trying to figure out what it was that she'd wanted him to say, that she'd found herself melting all too quickly. But he couldn't change Fox News, and even now, months later, every time Helen does anything in public, Donna still feels as if she's feeling her way precariously along a tightrope strung across the Grand Canyon, with whole packs of ravenous lions looking up at her expectantly, waiting for her to fall.

Josh sent her flowers after that first big fight. He's sent her a lot of flowers this past year, mostly when he's had to work late too many nights in a row. They're beautiful-he's always sent her beautiful flowers. But they don't satisfy her much. What are flowers, however lovely, compared to all these long, empty evenings on her own?

She'd rather have a really good conversation with him, the kind they used to slip into sometimes, when he was working late and she'd stay with him, and he'd get onto some subject that interested him, and she'd ask questions and argue with him, and he'd argue back. He always seemed to like that. She'd liked it too, of course, more than she'd ever let him know. Or when she'd get onto something that interested her, and he'd tease her for a while but then suddenly get serious, and it would be him doing the questioning, and her teaching him, even though he'd argue with her-he'd seemed to like that, too. She loved it, all of it. Nothing had ever made her feel so mentally engaged, or given her that special kind of intellectual and emotional high that, she sometimes thought, was everything foreplay really ought to be, but wasn't.

It's been a long time since they talked like that. She tries to remember when their last conversation like that was, and can't. Sometime before she left her old job. Before she left for Gaza, even. She doesn't know why they stopped, but they've never really got back into the way of it-they didn't talk like that during the campaign, or even on that otherwise-wonderful vacation together. And now they're living together, and they never have those wonderful conversations at all. He isn't there to have them with.

She has plenty of work to fill her evenings at home with, of course. And when he comes back, there's the sex, which-when he isn't too tired, and usually even when he is-is terrific, even though they don't engage in that other, oh-so-satisfying kind of mental foreplay first. Still, the physical kind is very good. A year ago, she'd thought that a really great job and really good sex almost every night was all she'd ever want. She'd been wrong.

She wonders now if, really, it isn't time to end this thing. Maybe what she truly needs is someone like Amy Gardner's woodcarver-a man who isn't in politics, who works at home and greets her every night with a glass of wine and the warm smells of something delicious cooking on the stove. A man who has the time to talk to her for more than five minutes about her day. A man whose job isn't so much more important and difficult than hers that talking about her problems makes her feel inept and ridiculous, and so she never wants to take more than those five minutes to talk about them, anyway.

Or even a man who'd talk about the problems he'd had in his day, which was something else Josh didn't do anymore. Someone whose work wasn't so confidential that he couldn't talk about it, or so exhausting that he didn't have the mental energy left to say more than, "Fine, and yours?" when she asks him, or to do more than eat the leftovers she's saved for him, and brush his teeth and fall into bed to make almost-silent love to her.

For just a minute, Donna envies Amy what she has now, and thinks seriously about going home, packing her things, and moving out of Josh's apartment, so she can look for another man. She's still young and attractive enough; it isn't too late yet. And she's done it before; she's left Josh before. Why shouldn't she do it again?

She shivers. If she leaves him now, she knows, it's forever. So that means never feeling his arms around her again. Never letting her lips melt into his again. Never falling asleep curled up against him again, or waking to hear him breathing steadily and reassuringly alive and _there _beside her again. . . .

Donna drops her head into her hands and squeezes it, trying to force back the headache that's starting up behind her temples. She really doesn't think she can give all that up. But she doesn't know if she can go on like this much longer, either.

The only thing she does know is that, if anything _is _going to change, it's going to have to start with her. Josh is never going to do anything differently. Their one-year anniversary in November has come and gone without any of the discussion of their future that she'd been hoping he'd use the occasion to bring up. She wonders now why she'd thought he would. He never will. Some men might be waiting for Christmas to surprise her with the question and a ring, and the kind of conversation she needed would flow naturally after that. But not Josh. He'll go along the way he is for as long as she lets him. It's the way he's always been.

She can force a discussion with him, of course, if she has to. But she doesn't want to have to, because, really, she has no idea what to say to him anymore, or how she wants things to change at all.

Donna rubs her temples again, sighs, and forces herself out of her chair. She needs to go and get some coffee, and then do that Christmas shopping Helen was talking so cheerfully about. She's done most of it already, on Amazon-everything she needs for her parents, her sister and brother-in-law, her nieces and nephews, her old friends. She's found gifts for her staff, books for Peter and Miranda, even something for Helen-that last a real challenge, as Donna knows better than anyone that Helen's tastes are naturally spare and simple, and that she already has everything she wants by the dozen, as well as far too many things she doesn't want and dislikes having her life and her family's weighed down by. But Donna is a mastermind at gift-shopping, and has found something she thinks her boss will really like.

But she still doesn't have anything for Josh.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note:

Dear readers,

Until last year, my practice was always to finish a story before beginning to post it. I broke this long-standing habit with "Lighthouse Christmas," which I thought was going to be a fluffy, four-chapter Christmas family-fic, but soon turned into something much darker and much, _much _longer than I'd intended. I found the pressure to post on anything like a regular time-table difficult, and the amount of time it took to finish the story overwhelming, so I told friends afterwards that I would never do that again. It would have been wise if I'd stuck to that decision.

But, as you know if you've been reading this story, a few months later I found myself wanting to write another Christmas fic. I had some stuff in my drafts folder that I'd been trying to piece together for a very long time. There were quite a few bits and pieces, I'd finally figured out how I thought they should fit together, and I decided to take the plunge again.

That was a big mistake. The pieces I'd written-some of them years ago-have turned out to be far less compatible with each other than I'd thought. Others have become redundant: I began this story a long time ago, and ended up using some of my ideas, and even, it turns out, some of the sections I'd drafted for it, in other stories since then. To make matters worse, in trying to get through a section I hadn't written but knew I had to, I wrote a chapter in response to a current news story, posted it immediately, and realized the next morning that I'd created a whole new set of problems for myself that I didn't know how to work through. I'm afraid I still don't.

I do know that Matt Santos would never countenance torture. I'm quite certain that, faced with the news that the C.I.A. had been mistreating prisoners overseas, he would have immediately issued an executive order banning all forms of coercion and requiring that all prisoners be treated as they would in the U.S. I never meant to imply anything less for him-but that's one of the problems with posting as you write. You produce something that doesn't really add up, and then you're stuck with it.

I've been trying to think of ways to finesse that, but everything I come up with just creates a new set of problems. And I'm afraid I've lost the thread now. I don't like this story anymore, and I can't seem to take it where I wanted it to go-which was not, I hope you realize, to show Josh and Donna falling apart, but to show them working through some of the problems I thought might come up for them, working in those impossibly demanding jobs, and not having resolved their issues before they began. (The fact that Donna isn't wearing a ring in that scene where she wakes him in "Tomorrow" has always suggested to me that they really hadn't made a full commitment at that point.) I wanted to write a more realistic take on Josh in that first year than I did in "Life after Paradise," and weave that together with a plot line about him having to deal with Goodwin's rivalry for Matt's attention, and Matt having to make a real decision about which one of them he was going to listen to-because it drove me crazy that on the show we saw Matt not only seriously considering ditching Josh towards the end of the campaign, but putting Goodwin in charge of the transition and listening to his advice over Josh's, even when he wanted Josh to be his Chief of Staff.

I was interested, too, in Helen's attitude towards Josh, which I wanted to show eventually changing from the hostility we saw earlier in the campaign-though I thought that at first it would probably be increased by the move into the White House, which she obviously wasn't happy about. And then there were other characters whom we were either shown Josh making enemies of, or who seemed very likely to become enemies under the circumstances the show set up in that last season. That's what I wanted to explore with the anonymous letters that I was starting to show him receiving. They were meant to cause a lot of tension at first, but ultimately to become the catalyst for everyone's having to re-evaluate their understanding of Josh-which, as I guess has become more than obvious by now, is usually where I want my stories to go.

But I can't do it. At least, I can't do it now, and I really don't think I'm ever going to be able to. And I'm mortified. Starting to post a story and not finishing it is the one thing I've always promised myself I wouldn't do as a writer, because I absolutely hate it when other writers hook me in and leave me hanging, but in this case, I think it's probably better to draw a line and tell you now that I can't do this, rather than leave you waiting any longer, or risk sucking in any more readers and disappointing them.

I want to apologize to all of you for dropping you into my messy writing-process like this. I'm so sorry. I've always thought that, if nothing else, at least I had a reputation for finishing what I began, and I hate to let that go. But I don't want to keep you hanging, and I don't want to throw together a lousy story just for the sake of getting this done, either. It seems better to embarrass myself and admit that I made a mistake in starting to post this when it wasn't finished. I've posted enough that embarrasses me already, not to want to add something I _know _is bad from the start to the pile.

If the site lets me, I'll leave this note up for a week, and then-assuming I can figure out how to do it-take this story down. If I ever do get it written, I'll put it back up in its entirety, but I'm afraid at this point that seems pretty unlikely. If anyone still wants to know more about where this was going, just send me a PM, and I'll fill you in on what I had in mind-unsolved problems, warts and all.

My thanks to everyone who took the time to read this, especially to those of you who took the time to post encouraging comments, or to write to me privately with them. I appreciate that more than I can say.

With apologies and regrets,

Chai


End file.
